Press Releases - News

F5 Networks Announces Second Quarter 2009 Results

April 22, 2009

F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV) today announced revenue of $154.1 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2009, down seven percent from $165.6 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2009 and three percent from $159.1 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2008.

GAAP net income for the second quarter was $19.0 million ($0.24 per diluted share) compared to $21.4 million ($0.27 per diluted share) in the first quarter of 2009 and $17.7 million ($0.21 per diluted share) in the second quarter of fiscal 2008. Excluding the impact of stock-based compensation, a restructuring charge, and a charge for a patent-related legal settlement, non-GAAP net income for the second quarter was $30.3 million ($0.38 per diluted share), compared to $32.3 million ($0.40 per diluted share) in the prior quarter and $28.9 million ($0.35 per diluted share) in the second quarter of fiscal 2008.

A reconciliation of GAAP net income to non-GAAP net income is included on the attached Consolidated Statements of Operations.

"Continued weakening in the global economy impacted sales across all regions," said John McAdam, F5 president and chief executive officer. "On a year-over-year basis, February sales were particularly slow, and although March sales improved significantly, revenue for the quarter was below our guidance."

"Despite the challenging economic environment, revenue from our core application delivery controller business was flat as compared to the second quarter of fiscal 2008, and revenue from our file virtualization business grew sequentially from the first quarter of fiscal 2009. We were also pleased that as a result of our aggressive cost-reduction and expense-control initiatives, we exceeded both our operating margin and cash flow targets for the quarter," McAdam said.

For the third quarter of fiscal 2009, ending June 30, the company has set a revenue target of $148 million to $157 million and a GAAP earnings target of $0.22 to $0.25 per diluted share. Excluding stock-based compensation expense, the company's non-GAAP earnings target is $0.35 to $0.38 per diluted share. A reconciliation of the company's expected GAAP and non-GAAP earnings is provided in the following table:

Three months ended June 30, 2009

Reconciliation of Expected Non-GAAP Third Quarter Earnings

Low

High

Net income

$17.5

$19.9

Stock-based compensation expense, net of tax

10.1

10.1

Non-GAAP net income

$27.6

$30.0

Net income per share - diluted

$0.22

$0.25

Non-GAAP net income per share - diluted

$0.35

$0.38

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks is the global leader in Application Delivery Networking. F5 provides solutions that make applications secure, fast, and available for everyone. By adding intelligence and manageability into the network to offload applications and optimize the data storage layer, F5 extends the power of intelligent networking to all levels of application delivery. F5's extensible architecture optimizes applications, delivers application reliability and protects the application and network. Enterprise organizations, service providers and Web 2.0 content providers worldwide trust F5 to keep their applications running. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington with offices worldwide. For more information, go to www.f5.com.

Forward Looking Statements

Statements in this press release concerning the continuing strength of F5's business, sequential growth, the target revenue and earnings range, share amount and share price assumptions, demand for application delivery networking and storage virtualization products and other statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions and other factors that, if they do not fully materialize or prove correct, could cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: customer acceptance of our new traffic management, security, application delivery, WAN optimization and storage virtualization offerings; the timely development, introduction and acceptance of additional new products and features by F5 or its competitors; competitive pricing pressures; increased sales discounts; uncertain global economic conditions which may result in reduced customer demand for our products and services and changes in customer payment patterns; F5's ability to sustain, develop and effectively utilize distribution relationships; F5's ability to attract, train and retain qualified product development, marketing, sales, professional services and customer support personnel; F5's ability to expand in international markets; the unpredictability of F5's sales cycle; the share repurchase program; future prices of F5's common stock; and other risks and uncertainties described more fully in our documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available as of the date hereof and qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. F5 assumes no obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements.

GAAP to non-GAAP Reconciliation

F5's management evaluates and makes operating decisions using various operating measures. These measures are generally based on the revenues of its products, services operations and certain costs of those operations, such as cost of revenues, research and development, sales and marketing and general and administrative expenses. One such measure is net income excluding stock-based compensation, which is a non-GAAP financial measure under Section 101 of Regulation G under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. This measure consists of GAAP net income excluding, as applicable, stock-based compensation. Net income excluding stock-based compensation (non-GAAP) is adjusted by the amount of additional taxes or tax benefit that the company would accrue if it used non-GAAP results instead of GAAP results to calculate the company's tax liability. Stock-based compensation is a non-cash expense that F5 has accounted for since July 1, 2005 in accordance with the fair value recognition provisions of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 123(R), "Share-Based Payment."

Management believes that net income excluding stock-based compensation (non-GAAP) provides useful supplemental information to management and investors regarding the performance of the company's business operations and facilitates comparisons to the company's historical operating results. Although F5's management finds this non-GAAP measure to be useful in evaluating the performance of the business, management's reliance on this measure is limited because items excluded from such measures could have a material effect on F5's earnings and earnings per share calculated in accordance with GAAP. Therefore, F5's management will use its non-GAAP earnings and earnings per share measures, in conjunction with GAAP earnings and earnings per share measures, to address these limitations when evaluating the performance of the company's business. Investors should consider these non-GAAP measures in addition to, and not as a substitute for, financial performance measures in accordance with GAAP.

The reconciliation of the company's expected GAAP and non-GAAP second quarter earnings also excludes a restructuring charge related to a loss on facility exit, workforce reduction and accelerated depreciation on tenant improvements. This restructuring charge will be incurred during the quarter ending March 31, 2009 in connection with a reduction in the company's workforce and the consolidation of certain of the company's office space.

F5 believes that presenting its non-GAAP measure of earnings and earnings per share provides investors with an additional tool for evaluating the performance of the company's business, which management uses in its own evaluation of the company's performance. Investors are encouraged to look at GAAP results as the best measure of financial performance. For example, stock-based compensation is an obligation of the Company that should be considered and each line item is important to financial performance generally. However, while the GAAP results are more complete, the company provides investors this supplemental measure since, with reconciliation to GAAP, it may provide additional insight into its operational performance and financial results.

This press release may contain forward looking statements relating to future events or future financial performance that involve risks and uncertainties. Such statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," or "continue," or the negative of such terms or comparable terms. These statements are only predictions and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these statements based upon a number of factors including those identified in the company's filings with the SEC.